Hi everyone, sorry for the delay. All moved into my temporary digs now so updates will be as regular as I can make them. I'll be continuing with stage 61 this week, and possibly some of the rest of this issue otherwise I'm going to end up quite far behind. I'll try anyway. I'm going to do the order of this in my actual working order, hopefully this will make sense as you read this entry.
So, 61.3, fitting the engine intercooler to engine pipes. So, the pipes are shown below, notice how they curve inwards. This is important as the curve curves inwards towards to chassis.
The paint was removed from the pipes and they were glued to the intercooler pipes on the radiator housings, left first (pictured) and then right (not pictured).
Happy days right....? Nope, not by a long shot.
Stage 61.4, temporarily attaching the engine block. Now normally I'd complain about how it's only temporary and therefore a pointless stage, but in this case it helped me to realise my error. Now firstly, the engine block was lowered onto the intercooler pipes, the idea being that the holes on the plenum chamber lined up with the protrusions on the intercooler pipes and the engine would sit flush with the chassis.
*Side note* it was at this point that I physically realised the engine oil filter was missing as described in my previous post. After some deliberation about whether or not to rectify the missing part or to leave it and just glue whatever wire will be placed there to the engine block instead, I decided that I couldn't live with the knowledge that I was half arsing it so had to come up with a fix. So I'm going to digress slightly while I address that problem, and then get back to 61.4.
So the way I tried to tackle the missing oil filter joint was to basically make own. The only way I could do this with the materials on hand was to cut a section out of the sprue, and file and trim it to get it as close to the right size as possible. A lot harder than it sounds as it turns out considering the size of the part I was trying to replicate. So, below is an interim photo of my poor replica.
And after about half an hour of sanding and cutting, I got it to a stage that i was happy enough. I was mainly concerned with the pin end being as close as possible, wasn't so bothered with the dimensions of the body of the joint. I also used a heated scalpel blade to cut a recess in the new part to fit on the small projection on the engine block assembly. The photos below shows the comparison to the existing.
And in relation to the original sprue it was taken from:
And glued onto the engine block assembly:
Not the best job, but it'll do. (stay tuned on this)
So back to the engine block, As you can see from the photos below it doesn't line up, I was fitting it ontop of the floor just so I could get a better idea of how it fit.
Now, at the time I could not, for the life of me work out why this was. I'm sure the keen eyed amongst you will have already realised what I did.
If some of you remember, I mentioned that when I glued the radiator housings onto the monocoque, one of them was about 2mm higher than the other, and I said I'd leave it until a time when it caused me a problem. My first assumption was that this was the root of my engine fitting problem. So I worked these off first, this was quite difficult because as it turns out the glue I use is stronger than the fires of hell haha.
, I tried using a none-acetone nail varnish remover as I was concerned that an acetone based one would melt the plastic of the model. This would have been a disaster obviously
. The solution didn't work, so I ended up finding a long scalpel blade and essentially cutting the plastic that was bonded. this left a rough surface that had to be sanded down, but did work without compromising the structural integrity.
These were then glued back onto the monocoque, using the floor as a guide. Ended up with them pretty much bang on but it still didn't help with the engine fitting problem. I was very puzzled. This was when I realised I had just ballsed up right at the beginning and fitted the intercooler pipes the wrong way around. As you can see from the photos above, the curve of the intercooler to engine pipes curve away from the monocoque instead of towards them, basically I had put the left on the right and vice versa. Stupid stupid mistake caused by just rushing the model out. (When I get an issue I try and do all 3 or 4 stages in 1 day and then update this blog every week or so after). So.... I got these off, switched them around and bingo, had it sorted. Finally.
As you can see the engine and monocoque now fit much more smoothly. Happy Alex.
Finally, after the drama, the engine mounting plates were screwed to the engine block and monocoque (care was taken to orientate them to the correct side and and rotation haha.)
The engine block was also screwed to the monocoque through the monocoque rear.
As an extra thing during this point, I also decided to neaten up the heat shielding on the floor. Easy enough, just cut a strip out of the extra heat shielding I had and stuck it on the floor, care was taken not to get any heat shielding on the small pins that fit the floor sections together. I'm not too bothered about the tiny gap in the middle as this is where the engine block assembly will sit on the floor, and will therefore cover it. I'm happy with it.
Before:
After:
And that's it for this week. Thanks for reading this particularly long winded entry. Sorry for blabbing on, just trying to give as much honest detail as possible instead of just saying ' yeah it's all going mint, no issues'.
I'll be carrying on with this issue next update, got 2 more stages to do which are reasonably detailed, and thankfully not as botched as this one.
Cheers,
Alex.
, Wastegate right (6) & wastegate left (7). 
) the only movable parts of the model are the wheels rotate, the brake disks rotate, the steering is functional, and the front wing can be adjusted, this is in addition to the body work being removable etc.
